I've said it before but it bears repeating, fuck a bunch of "holy" sites. If you go looking for saints in Palestine/Israel you will find only sinners, intransigent assholes who won't give a goddam inch. Of course whatever side they're on, GOD/ALLAH/YAHWEH is with them.

I've said it before but it bears repeating, fuck a bunch of "holy" sites. If you go looking for saints in Palestine/Israel you will find only sinners, intransigent assholes who won't give a goddam inch. Of course whatever side they're on, GOD/ALLAH/YAHWEH is with them.

My father once used the phrase "mercy nuking" when discussing that conflict.

" i discovered you eat dog dicks out of a bowl marked "dog dicks" because you're too stupid to remember where you left your bowl of dog dicks."-dhex, of course.
"Come, let us go forth and not rape together"-Jadagul

I've said it before but it bears repeating, fuck a bunch of "holy" sites. If you go looking for saints in Palestine/Israel you will find only sinners, intransigent assholes who won't give a goddam inch. Of course whatever side they're on, GOD/ALLAH/YAHWEH is with them.

It kinda, sorta is. Face it, if no major religion had any such thing as a holy land or holy or sacred site it would be a hell of a lot easier to, say, offer a swap between Utah and Israel (a win-win IMHO) and to topple corrupt regimes like Our Good Friends The Saudis.

My interest in the conflict is nearly nil at this point. I've yet to see anyone argue the subject at length without it becoming clear that ey've picked a side - or at least a side to despise more. Rejecting the idea that there's anything particularly special about one particular group of Middle-Easterners being oppressed in a region of oppression, or one nation suffering terrorist attacks, I find it interesting how pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups have managed to make this conflict so important that everyone in the world, no matter eir religion or background, must have an opinion on every bit of violence from either side, despite all the oppression and killing in the world that doesn't get anywhere near this sort of attention.

Sri Lanka had an outright sustained civil war between the government and an army representing an ethnic minority that just ended last year, with estimated casualties up to 100,000 dead - in a population of only 20 million. How often did a Tamil Tiger representative show up on evening news in the West? Where was the passionate debate about which side was "right" and the BSing over which side violated ceasefire agreements more? Where was the human rights concern? Where were the Western activists? Where was the talk of what America must do? Where were the hundreds of UN resolutions? Where were the attempts by people inside and outside the region to blame every problem there on that conflict?

Eric the .5b wrote:Sri Lanka had an outright sustained civil war between the government and an army representing an ethnic minority that just ended last year, with estimated casualties up to 100,000 dead - in a population of only 20 million. How often did a Tamil Tiger representative show up on evening news in the West? Where was the passionate debate about which side was "right" and the BSing over which side violated ceasefire agreements more? Where was the human rights concern? Where were the Western activists? Where was the talk of what America must do? Where were the hundreds of UN resolutions? Where were the attempts by people inside and outside the region to blame every problem there on that conflict?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if Europe had set up mechanized and bureaucratized camps designed to kill Tamils, and then suddenly realized how horrific that was once the contact high of war wore off, the US/European public would probably have cared more. Or, if the Tamils had been instrumental in fighting back Soviet control of the region among the Sinhalese (who, in this counterfactual, had control over Random Necessary Resource A), we'd likewise have suddenly cared more. The societal guilt among the leadership class and their need to keep the Geopolitical Go board even against the Soviets made supporting Israel a big thing ideologically, and the injustices that sprung from that created a group of people just as stridently against Israel, as it always does.

In short, our society cares because our masters in the media and government have spent almost five decades telling us it's important that we care. Because it's important that *they* care, and, like chicks going to the restroom at a nightclub, they hate doing anything alone.

"VOTE SHEMOCRACY! You will only have to do it once!" -Loyalty Officer Aresen

Eric the .5b wrote: I find it interesting how pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups have managed to make this conflict so important that everyone in the world, no matter eir religion or background, must have an opinion on every bit of violence from either side, despite all the oppression and killing in the world that doesn't get anywhere near this sort of attention.

And when South Africa was run by the apartheid government in the 1980s, the plight of South African blacks in the townships got disproportionately more attention than other places where oppressed folks had it far worse than the township residents. Something about a government openly committed to ethno/religious rather than political ideals going out of its way to oppress people who fall into the wrong ethno/religious category tends to resonate with 21st-century Westerners, especially those familiar with and horrified by the history of German crimes in World War Two (and America's own less-than-clean hands regarding racial, ethnic and religious matters). The circumstances surrounding Israel's founding only add additional irony.

"Myself, despite what they say about libertarians, I think we're actually allowed to pursue options beyond futility or sucking the dicks of the powerful." -- Eric the .5b

D.A. Ridgely wrote:It kinda, sorta is. Face it, if no major religion had any such thing as a holy land or holy or sacred site it would be a hell of a lot easier to, say, offer a swap between Utah and Israel (a win-win IMHO) and to topple corrupt regimes like Our Good Friends The Saudis.

Any actual examples of long running conflicts between peoples over land and nationalism that were so easy to solve?

Religion is a complicating issue no doubt, but it hardly seems to be the only one, and considering how secular much of Israel is, maybe not the primary one.

Eric the .5b wrote: I find it interesting how pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups have managed to make this conflict so important that everyone in the world, no matter eir religion or background, must have an opinion on every bit of violence from either side, despite all the oppression and killing in the world that doesn't get anywhere near this sort of attention.

And when South Africa was run by the apartheid government in the 1980s, the plight of South African blacks in the townships got disproportionately more attention than other places where oppressed folks had it far worse than the township residents. Something about a government openly committed to ethno/religious rather than political ideals going out of its way to oppress people who fall into the wrong ethno/religious category tends to resonate with 21st-century Westerners, especially those familiar with and horrified by the history of German crimes in World War Two (and America's own less-than-clean hands regarding racial, ethnic and religious matters). The circumstances surrounding Israel's founding only add additional irony.

Well, ethnicity was a huge factor in the Sri Lankan conflict, too. Though neither side reflected an ethnicity that held much particular meaning to anyone outside the immediate warzone....

I don't think there's any way to boil down why some conflicts grab more of the world's attention and inspire more outside involvement than others. There are factors that can be cited (past cold war confrontations as Shem mentions, guilt, identification, etc.), but I doubt you'll ever find a consistent formula.

Israel used to be secular, so did the Palestinian opposition groups. Now both sides are increasingly religious (the Orthodox are outfucking the more secular Jews; Communism bought the farm), and thus, increasingly douchey.

Regarding Sri Lanka, few cared in the West, but there are like fifty or sixty million Tamils in India. In Tamil Nadu. I do think they were supporting the Tamil opposition, though that may have tapered off because the Tigers were vicious bastards.

For South Africa, I think the West cared more because the Afrikaners are ostensibly Western but were running the government in a way that every other Western country had rejected by that point. For non-Westerners it was just more imperialism.

In part for that reason, “we’re not leaving behind cooks and quartermasters,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Wednesday in a telephone interview. The bulk of the remaining American troops, he said, “will still be guys who can shoot straight and go get bad guys.”

sri lanka is a good example of a largely-ignored tragedy whose opaqueness in the west may be due, i think, to a lack of western interest in the area. add to that a lack of tamil diaspora in the u.s., etc etc and so forth.

spaceraelis is my new favorite neologism, btw.

"i ran over the cat and didnt stop just carried on with tears in my eyes joose driving my way to work." - God

Jennifer wrote:Something about a government openly committed to ethno/religious rather than political ideals going out of its way to oppress people who fall into the wrong ethno/religious category tends to resonate with 21st-century Westerners, especially those familiar with and horrified by the history of German crimes in World War Two (and America's own less-than-clean hands regarding racial, ethnic and religious matters). The circumstances surrounding Israel's founding only add additional irony.

Except, of course, it's not as if there aren't ethno/religious conflicts and oppression around the world. What precisely is special about what's happening to the Palestinians (and during good years for Hamas et al, to some Israelis) that anyone who's not a religious nut of certain persuasions cares so much about it?

The interest in the conflict is encouraged throughout the world by groups supporting either side. Without that, this would be relegated to the back of the newspaper with all the other wars and atrocities.

Jennifer wrote:Something about a government openly committed to ethno/religious rather than political ideals going out of its way to oppress people who fall into the wrong ethno/religious category tends to resonate with 21st-century Westerners, especially those familiar with and horrified by the history of German crimes in World War Two (and America's own less-than-clean hands regarding racial, ethnic and religious matters). The circumstances surrounding Israel's founding only add additional irony.

Except, of course, it's not as if there aren't ethno/religious conflicts and oppression around the world. What precisely is special about what's happening to the Palestinians (and during good years for Hamas et al, to some Israelis) that anyone who's not a religious nut of certain persuasions cares so much about it?

The interest in the conflict is encouraged throughout the world by groups supporting either side. Without that, this would be relegated to the back of the newspaper with all the other wars and atrocities.

Israel's 200(?) nukes might have something to do with all the attention. The world pays more attention to Pakistan/India border disputes than it used to.

The U.S. didn't really give a hoot about Israel until after the '67 war. Up until this point, France had been the big backer of Israel. Between 67 and 73, Nasser's (and then Sadat's) Egypt got the backing of the Soviet Union. We were afraid that Israel would fall to Soviet client states (Syria and Egypt), and then get control of the whole Middle East. We had the "Northern Tier" countries (originally Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan) to stand against the Soviet Union but eventually lost them one by one, and in any event the Soviets were able to get around them. In the '73 war, Egypt invaded Israel with Soviet backing. This was a much bigger war than 1948, 1956, or 1967. It had some of the largest conventional battles in history. The U.S. was ferrying fighters into that country as fast as it could because the Egyptian air force and surface to air missile capability had been much improved by the Soviets. I understand that U.S. Air Force pilots would land in Turkey (I think), their planes' livery would get painted over with Israeli markings, and then Israeli fighter pilots would take them immediately into combat. Henry Kissinger stopped the war as it was turning in favor of the Israelis who looked like they were going to end up in Damascus. That would have been too much for the Soviets and might have led to a series of escalations that would have meant U.S. and Soviet forces fighting each other directly which would have eventually led to nuclear war. We've been there ever since, supporting the Israeli military and then propping up Egypt once Sadat flipped over to us from the Soviets.

Eric the .5b wrote:That's all well and good up to 20 years ago, FFF, but it doesn't explain now except through inertia. Nor does it explain why Israel holds so much more fascination than any other US client state/ally.

Inertia's like 50%+ of why we are still involved. The rest is made up of the turdstorm that would occur if Egypt were to fall to fundamentalists and Israel weren't there to put the kibosh on it.

EDIT: There's also the fact that the U.S. has been involved for a long time, but it never got resolved. Vietnam ended. We have normal relations now. The Apartheid regime collapsed. Eastern Europe became a series of democracies. But the Middle East is still a mess. The Middle East will remain a big problem for the U.S. until we switch from oil to something else or the Middle East runs out of oil. Then, it will become Africa II: The Heretic. That is, worse off than Africa and people will care even less.

Last edited by Fin Fang Foom on 02 Jun 2010, 14:08, edited 1 time in total.